situation

• Agape - love as the ruling norm 


  Joseph Fletcher argued that love was what morality should serve. He thought that when making a moral decision, you should be prepared to set aside rules if it seemed that love would be better served by doing so

  
  

  'The situationist follows a moral law or violates it according to love's need' (Fletcher, Situation Ethics)

  
  

  • agape = unconditional love
• 6 propositions

  1. love is intrinsically good
  2. love is the only ruling norm
  3. love and justice are the same - acting justly is acting in the name of love - justice is love that is distributed
  4. Love wills the neighbour’s good regardless of whether the neighbour is liked or not - doing good regardless
  5. Love is the goal/ end of the act and that justifies any means to achieve that goal - the outcome must be the most loving outcome
  6. Love decides on each situation as it arises without a set of laws to guide it - situational
• Conscience - Fletcher

  a verb rather than a noun, something you do when you make decisions

  it is the weighing up of the possible decision before it is taken.

  • doesn't guide human action
  • not an inner voice with access to divine truth - not the voice of God
• Eval - SE

  Strengths

  • relativist/ flexible - considers the individual's situation - use free will to decide the most loving action - no objective right or wrong
  • It is not rigid and devoid of any emotion (which distinguishes humans from other mammals) allowing people to show more empathy when appropriate - agape
  • love as the ruling norm - not restricted by moral absolutes - relative
  • flexible - adaptable throughout time - won't be outdated
  • simple, quick and easy - choose the most loving outcome
  • aligns with Christian faith - what would Jesus do
• Eval - SE

  Weaknesses

  • too flexible - not useful to know what the most loving action is
  • too relativist - Ross- we have prima facie duties that must be followed
  • conscience - Aquinas - conscientia - process of 'reason seeking understanding' - working out the right thing to do
  • vague - doesn't specify what good is - meta-ethics - is it even possible to know what good even is?
  • what if an action is good for one person and not for another - utilitariansim would be better perhaps
  • makes any action justifiable - if they thought it would bring the most loving outcome
• EVAL SE - thinkers

  Macquarrie: SE is incurably individualistic

  • too focused on individuals and their situations - cannot be used for the basis of society
  • doesn't consider the community
  • too subjective

  Barclay: humans are fallible

  • if people make their own decisions then they must be morally and lovingly fit to make these decisions
  • if not we need the compulsion of law - absolutes

  DZ Phillips: can we truly be confident in doing the right thing - limited knowledge
• Eval - SE


  W

  • too relativist - Ross- we have prima facie duties that must be followed
  • conscience - Aquinas - conscientia - process of 'reason seeking understanding'
  • vague - doesn't specify what good is - meta-ethics - is it possible to know what good is?
  • what if an action is good for one person and not for another - utilitariansim may be better
  • makes any action justifiable - if they thought it would bring the most loving outcome
  • isolates the Church - no authority - ignores centuries of Church tradition
  • ignores religious/societal absolutes - Hiroshima
• Jesus breaking the laws

  Jesus healed the blind man on the Sabbath - John 9

  • show love over laws - no absolutes
  • Jesus was the perfect example of SE in practice

  Golden Rule - treat others how you would want to be treated